Our Master Distiller

Frank McHardy joined the Scottish whisky industry at Invergordon grain distillery in 1963. He went on to work at Tamanvulin and Bruichladdich. He first started work for Springbank Distillery, Campbeltown in 1977. With the exception of a decade as Master Distiller of Bushmills Distillery in Ireland, Frank has been with Springbank, and he retired as their Master Distiller in 2014.

Though officially now retired, Frank oversees distillation for a small distillery in Australia, one in Ireland, and Dartmoor Whisky Distillery.

In 2014 Frank was the 19th person to be inaugurated into Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame, see:

During McHardy’s time with Mitchell’s, Springbank diversified into a third range of whiskies to sit alongside ‘standard’ Sprinbank and the heavily-peated Longrow, namely the unpeated and tripledistilled Hazelburn, first produced in 1997

Between 2000 and 2004 he was responsible for sourcing of all the equipment and designing the layout of the revived Glengyle distillery, which had last produced whisky in 1925. The development of this venture remains one of McHardy’s proudest achievements, and the principal Glengyle distillery structure was named the Frank McHardy Production Building in recognition of his contribution.

Subscribe to our mailing list

The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe investing in rural areas

This funding was to support our project to renovate and develop our distillery.